


Assembling the Crew

by clayrlibrarian



Series: Watch how we soar [1]
Category: Firefly, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefly Verse, F/M, Friendship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-30 15:29:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clayrlibrarian/pseuds/clayrlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To become a whole greater than its parts, the parts have to come together first.</p><p>How the crew of space cruiser <em>Patria</em> found their way onto the ship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Feuilly

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very loose thing and I never planned on anything.  
> Tags will be added as I write, this is not beta'd, I have no idea how much I will write but I adore this Verse.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need you on my ship” may or may not be the greatest declaration of love Enjolras would ever make.

Enjolras had a ship.

He’d only just bought her, and had no idea what to do about the minor reparis she needed but he had a ship. 

A ship, a second in command and a medic. 

Said second in command had said he knew someone who might be interested in becoming their pilot. 

Okay, Courfeyrac knew a lot of people and he’d also said the same about a mechanic who had proven to be a complete desaster, but Enjolras was optimistic. 

Life was good and today was an amazing day to take a stroll while Courfeyrac was talking to a potential new pilot and Combeferre was taking care of supplies.

On a buzzing spaceport, loud arguments and the clanging sound of someone throwing things were not unusual and he’d gotten used to tuning them out when he walked around a place like this. For some reason, this particlar mix of expletives and technological jargon made him stop in in his tracks and look around for the source of the commotion. 

It was a man. He was wearing overalls, some sort of black greasy residue on his face and in his light brown hair, as well as on his hands, which were in constant motion as he tried to explain something to two other people in front of him, both of them looking dumbfounded.

"But -," one of them interjected when he paused to take a deep breath. 

Obviously, the guy was not having any interruptions.

"No. No "but"s, no "please", no "sorry"s. I’ve told you a thousand times. I was okay with the dampeners. I was going to be okay with cleaning up after the complete waste of oxygen you call a pilot and his inability to operate this vessel. I was going to stick around for the money and because you can’t leave a ship like this," he hapazardly pointed at the very nice looking ship they’d just come out of. Even Enjolras could recognize that his ship had nothing on that one.

"To idiots like you, but that last stunt you pulled nearly left us stranded in space with no air. I’m good but if that ship hadn’t flown by when it did," he got closer to them, his voice suddenly more quiet and cold. Enjolras strained to listen.

"We. Would. Have. Died."

By the end of it, his voice was nearly a whisper. It got more understandable as he said his last sentence. 

"I told you. I quit."

Then he turned around and stormed off. It took a lot to manage an exit like that while wearing grease stained overalls. 

Enjolras was stuck speechless. This guy. Wow. 

"Wait!" he shouted. "Please, wait!" and ran after him. 

The Guy turned around, looked at him and lit his cigarette. 

"What?" he asked, still sounding angry. 

Enjolras stopped in his tracks. 

"I- I just saw you back there. I heard what was going on. I don’t usually go around listening to strangers’ conversations, not my business, really.

"But… I just bought a ship. We’re looking for crew. I’ve got a second in command and a medic. They’re negotiating with a pilot right now. We thought we had a mechanic but that was a douche.

"Anyways, I just saw you there and you seemed like you knew what you were doing and you cared about the ship and the crew’s wellbeing. I need you on my ship. Be my mechanic?"

Enjolras was good at talking when it comes to negotiations. He could make a point and convince people of whatever he wanted them to believe in. Enjolras was, however, crap at asking people to do things other than laying down their lives for a cause they believe in and he hadn’t done that since Serenity Valley. 

He’d gotten really good at making an idiot out of himself since the war. 

At least it seemed like this served to amuse the guy. 

"So, you’re the captain?" he asks between drags of cigarette.

Enjolras nodded. 

"You want me to be your mechanic?"

Enjolras nodded again. 

"You have a second, a medic, a ship and nothing else?"

"Well, they’re talking to Eponine, who might-"

"You’re trusting those two people to chose the person who will be responsible for not getting us lost in the Black?"

Enjolras suddenly looked affronted.

"Of course I do." There was nothing he wouldn’t trust Courfeyrac and Combeferre with.

"What do you guys do?" The Guy asked. 

"Transport, mostly." Enjolras answered. A short smile crossed the mechanic’s face. He didn’t need to ask about the legality of whatever it was they did. 

"I take it you’re not alliance?", was the next, inevitable question. 

"I fought at Serenity. I wasn’t on the winning side."

He seemed to approve of Enjolras’ politics. At least he wasn’t running away for the potential minefield of working under the command of someone who freely admitted to having been Independence. Enjolras wondered where he’d been and what he’d done during the war. It hadn’t been that long ago.

"Take me to your ship, Captain."

"Follow me," Enjolras replied and lead the way. 

"Name’s Feuilly, by the way," said the new mechanic of the ship nobody but Enjolras wanted to call Patria and went to inspect her.


	2. Eponine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are not many pilots out there who are good enough to get them out of whatever they’ll no doubt get themselves into and even fewer who would. Courfeyrac knows just the woman for the job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't expect me to post this much frequently. I'm just really excited about this right now.

Sometimes, Courfeyrac felt that they couldn’t take Enjolras anywhere. Other times, he knew that they couldn’t. 

Meeting Eponine and hopefully talking her into being their pilot was one of the latter times. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t love Enjolras. He adored Enjolras, there had been days when he worshipped the ground his captain walked on.

He loved Enjolras, but he also knew Eponine and having them meet while he was in a disturbingly chipper mood and she had been without a job for a while was a bad idea, doubly so if he was actually trying to get her to do something for him. 

Of course, there was the problem of them having to meet at some point if everything was going to go according to plan, but Eponine was infintely less likely to make a terrible impression when things were going her way and she had a job. 

The things he went through for a good pilot. 

He supposed he had to make up for that douchebag of a mechanic. 

Courfeyrac sighed. Usually, when she didn’t have anything to do, Eponine stayed in a small room that was part of her father’s inn. There was only so much time he could spend standing in a corridor and evaluating his life choices before it got ridiculous. 

Not that long ago, he’d unflinchingly fought Alliance forces. He damn well could offer Eponine a job.

He knocked. 

"Courf? What brings you to my place?" Eponine asked instead of greeting him, slightly suspicious and probably assuming he needed fake papers. She knew a guy for those. Everyone knew she knew a guy for everything.

Courfeyrac had fallen from “honorable person involved in the command of military forces”, no matter what forces they were, to “some guy who is probably a smuggler”. Enjolras didn’t really notice it the way Courfeyrac did, but to him the loss of social standing was starkly obvious. 

"Can’t I just come visit you?," was his question in return. He walked into the room with a grin when she let him pass and sat down on the first and only chair in the room. 

Eponine’s eyebrows disappeared behind her fringe. 

"Is it just that then?" She sounded very sceptical. 

"How’s life planetside treating you?" he asked instead. 

Eponine took a drink of unidentifyable liquid from a glass that had been standing on the windowsill. Courfeyrac just hoped his best and only candidate for a pilot hadn’t started drinking even if she probably could still fly circles around Alliance ships while drunk and high on the more fun half of Combeferre’s medicine cabinet. 

"Honestly? I’m bored out of my skull but it’s still somehow better than flying for my father."

Courfeyrac didn’t know what had happened for her to be back here more or less permanently instead of doing frequent short transport runs for her father, but the less he knew about what sort of business he had the better, really. 

"So…" Courfeyrac grinned. "How do you feel about getting out of here for good? A ship, small crew, transport, mostly. Smuggling yes, slaves and drugs no."

Eponine certainly seemed intrigued. 

"Tell me more."

"Even division of profits, you know how that works. Right now, only captain, second in command and medic are there. That’s gonna change soon enough. No government involvement. You’d need to fly out of any crisis encountered, but nobody goes actively looking for trouble."

Trouble, Courfeyrac knew, usually found Enjolras and he was unable to stop himself from courting it. 

"Sounds interesting," Eponine said, her voice thoughtful. "Who’s the crew? Who’s got you looking for people?"

Now for the fun part. Eponine had met them all before. She and Enjolras had both been drunk. He had been more self-righteous back then than he was now. They’d… clashed. 

"My captain does," realisation flashed across her face.

"I’m second. ‘Ferre’s medic, the ship belongs to Enjolras."

If she’d looked surprised before, that was nothing compared to now. 

"Not looking for trouble? You three? Commanding a ship? Last I heard, that was the definition of trouble. You three haven’t worked together since Serenity. Enjolras hasn’t commanded anything since Serenity. We all know how that went."

"Which is why we need a damn good pilot. We’re good. We’re capable. We’ve got one of the best medics in the verse. We’re only going to do a bit of smuggling. Just some illegal transport of goods. Sometimes we’ll even do legal things. No politics. We won’t drag you into anything. Most crews out there are worse."

Eponine sighed and sat down on her bed. 

"I have conditions," she said after several moments of deliberation. 

Courfeyrac nodded. 

"If you guys get into any political bullshit again, I’m out."

"We’re not going to overthrow the government anytime soon," Courfeyrac said and wondered why the truth felt so much like a false promise. They were done. They’d agreed on that. Business and nothing else.

"If we get caught, it’s everyone for themselves. I don’t care what you do I want a life."

If they got caught, the the three of them wouldn’t have enough to lose to worry about Eponine and whatever she’d do.

"Never thought anything else," was his flippant reply.

"You’ll make sure the ship is in top condition. I’m not flying a rustbucket that’s falling apart under my seat."

"We’ll look for a mechanic together. Wanna come see her?" Courfeyrac got up and moved towards the door. 

"What’s her name, anyways?" Eponine asked. 

Coufeyrac sighed in mock-weariness.

"Patria"

Eponine caught up with him and laughed incredulously.

"Really?"

"It’s Enjolras’ ship. He gets to name it."

"Mutiny in the name of common sense and taste?"

"We should let him feel secure until we have more reasons to do that."

They had a pilot. He didn’t know it yet, but they also had a mechanic. Life was good.


	3. Bahorel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bahorel didn’t quite get what he wanted at the start of this, he got some friends and a job instead.
> 
> (Enjolras and Feuilly had not expected their first official off-ship date to go like this)

Bahorel really, really wanted to fuck someone up. Energy was coursing under his skin as he sipped a drink, the tension in his shoulders visible easy enough that anyone who’d ever think about approaching him would know that this wasn’t a wise idea. There was rage boiling his blood and winding him up until he was just looking for some hapless idiot to spring the trap. 

Considering the fact that his only chance to get off this damned moon had just flown off with all his money, his feelings on his current situation were understandable.

Bastards had just run off like that when he’d started to trust them. He’d never wished a goverment search on any crew of pirates but damn he wanted them to find every single stash on their piece of scrap boat.

There was a reason he decided to drink at a bar with regulars he disliked as strongly as he did the ones here.

On a table a few metres over, a group belonging to the species of asshole that would do well scraping to some corrupt core area politician but was otherwise mostly useless seemed to be getting ready to harass a couple of travellers from the only unknown ship that could currently be found within miles. Most likely their reason would be the unwise fashion choice one of them had made in wearing a long brown coat in the current political climate or the fact that it looked like those two guys were out on a date.

Bahorel knew an opportunity for an excellent bar brawl when he saw one and five middle-aged, narrow-minded, moderately drunk farmers against a pair of newcomers who probably wouldn’t hold their own in a fight and seemed mostly unarmed were definitely one.

He slowly unfurled from his chair and was just about to ask them what it was that seemed to be their problem when the one with the coat, the captain he thought, got up and asked that very same question. Standing there like that in his coat he looked like a statue of an ancient angry god than a random guy in a bar. Not interfering with other people’s conflicts until it looked like they needed help was generally a good idea and so he kept back for now.

Just a few minutes and no bar brawl later, he found himself at a table instead of on a barstool and nursing another beer, having somehow acquired two new conversational partners and trying to figure out who exactly they were as they wanted to know why he’d been so ready to jump in on their behalf.

Bahorel hadn’t met many people who managed to do _that_ with words, someone with that amount of raw charisma was rare and unexpected in a place like this. 

Their ship had landed just a few hours ago but news travelled fast of the five of them, not actually enough people for a ship that size. They were odd, it had been said, three of them having the bearings of someone from closer to the core, but one of those three, the captain, wearing a brown coat. Not something most sane people did these days. The other two, meanwhile, the girl and the guy who was sitting across from him now, looked more like they actually belonged on the ship they’d come here on. The girl also seemed to be the kind of person you wouldn’t want to mess with, while the guy had enough grease stains everywhere to safely assume he was a mechanic seemed to very much encourage people to leave him alone and back off. 

He wasn’t sure if Browncoat knew it, but the only thing that had stopped this town’s more clever conmen from getting to them had been the fact that those two would’ve spotted them a mile off. 

The way he’d just laid down the law on those perpetually drunk idiots explained why anyone seemed willing to heed Browncoat’s orders, at least. 

It didn’t explain a group that small on a ship that large in the middle of nowhere, or the fact that over half of that group looked like stupid rich kids who were getting into. 

First impressions could be deceiving from time to time, as he soon found out. 

Browncoat’s name was Enjolras, Mechanic was Feuilly and they were part of a tiny crew in search of jobs. They’d also cost him a brawl he that could’ve made his night even if it wouldn’t have gotten him away from here.

Bahorel considered his chances, decided to fuck it and just ask. The lack of willing opponents around meant that that half of his wishes was gone, but they did have a way to get out of here.

Sometimes, he guessed, you had to cut your losses and make best of the situation you were in. At least they’d ordered him another beer.

"Please tell me you guys would actually know how to handle yourself if that one had gone south," he said.

"It wouldn’t have," the captain replies, sounding very convinced of his own talents.

Bahorel was skeptical. Did the guy have any idea how this worked?

"Easily could’ve. If they’d been just a bit more drunk and actually angry."

While Feuilly seemed willing to admit that, Enjolras was a bit more stubborn. 

"We would’ve gotten out of it."

"And in what condition? Admit it, this could as easily have ended up with broken bones for the both of you."

Enjolras bristled. 

"What do you want? To say that you are right? To thank you for being ready to swoop in and rescue us? To tell you that coming here was obviously a huge mistake and that I will never enter another bar in my life?"

Bahorel looked him straight in the eyes and replied:

"Give me a job."

That answer had obviously not been expected.

"What?"

"Give me a job. You don’t have any muscle on your crew. No doubt you all can use your guns and that you can handle yourselves in fair fights and that girl might manage unfair ones too but the moment things go to hell, and from what I heard you guys do, they will, you’re fucked. I’ll have your backs and provide the intimidation necessary without you ever having to open your mouth. I’ll help on whatever jobs you have and I’m willing to get my hands dirty if need be. Give me a job and get me out of here."

Feuilly looked slightly relieved at the idea of that position in their crew being filled. If Bahorel had gotten him right, he’d been on enough ships to know how quickly someone who knew his way around a fight could become necessary.

Enjolras, however, took his time to think.

"How long would you stay on for?"

"Can’t promise you forever, but I won’t just take off in the middle of the night."

Bahorel had no idea what he was currently doing with his life, he’d been drifting from travelling with one friend to working for one acquaintance to travelling with someone who’d picked him up in a bar to suddenly getting left in the middle of fucking nowhere. 

"You’re not just going to abandon me or throw me to the reavers at some point, I hope. I will come back to haunt your sorry ass and make you regret that day."

Enjolras looked offended at the idea. 

"We never would. Never. If you think that would be a viable cause of action for anyone on my crew to consider I don’t want you on my ship," he said. Suddenly, his voice had turned colder and Bahorel had an all-too-vivid reminder of what had just happened to the other guys.

He nodded, looking solemn. 

"I agree, captain."

There was nothing left for them at the bar, Bahorel felt a bit sorry for crashing their date the way he had, but it had been them who had invited him to their table and started interrogating him. They didn’t seem to mind that much, really. 

As they led him around the ship and to the lounge to discuss business, they found another guy in the room eating what looked like noodle soup. 

"How was the date?", the unknown person asked.

"Pretty good," Feuilly replied.

"Some unexpected encounters with locals and we sort of picked up a guy at the bar."

Bahorel chose that moment to step forwards from the doorframe so he’d be more noticeable.

Noodle soup eating guy spluttered, his chair slammed back into an upright position instead of balancing on its back legs and he looked at Enjolras, who was starting to turn very red. 

"I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing, my friend. But really, congrats on an excellent choice," he said, looking at Bahorel who gave a slight nod and a smirk in acceptance of the compliment. 

"I -," Enjolras clearly wasn’t quite sure what to say, but he didn’t get the chance to say much as the guy got up and slowly walked closer. 

"But why did you bring him here instead of disappearing straight to a bedroom?" 

He now stood directly in front of Enjolras.

"Unless, of course, there is a reason for you to talk to my dashing, handsome, wonderful, considerate self. Are you propositioning to me?", he asked, a finger pointing at Enjolras’ chest in mock-accusation as he seemed to want to disappear through the floor and Feuilly next to him failed at containing his laughter. 

"All those years… You really could’ve said something earlier," he sighed, turned towards Feuilly and continued.

"And you? You are the one who besmirched our dear captain’s honour and ruined his virtue. All of this is entirely your fault. I have to say -" 

Dramatic pause.

"I approve of what you’ve done."

He backed off and looked at Bahorel. 

"Hey there big guy. I’m Courfeyrac. Second in Command of the wonderful ship _Patria_. And you are?”

He led them back to the table and that was it.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback appreciated at refrigeratorsrock.tumblr.com


End file.
